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No. 



179- 



James Otis, 
Samuel Adams, 
and John Hancock 



John Adams's Tributes to these as the Three Principal 
Movers and Agents of the American Revolution. 



to WILLIAM TUDOR. 

QuiNCY, 29 March, 1817. 

Is your daughter, Mrs. Stuart, who I am credibly informed 
is one of the most accomplished of ladies, a painter? Are you 
acquainted with Miss Lydia Smith, who, I am also credibly 
informed, is one of the most accomplished ladies, and a painter ? 
Do you know Mr. Sargent? Do you correspond with your old 
companion in arms, Colonel John Trumbull? Do you think 
Fisher will be an historical painter? 

Whenever you shall find a painter, male or female, I pray ; • 
you to suggest a scene and a subject for the pencil. 

The scene is the Council Chamber in the old Tow^n House in 
Boston. The date is in the month of February, 1761, nine 
years before you entered my office in Cole Lane. As this was 
five years before you entered college, you must have been in 
the second form of master Lovell's school. 

That council chamber was as respectable an apartment as 
the House of Commons or the House of Lords in Great Britain, 
in proportion, or that in the State House in Philadelphia, in 
which the declaration of independence was signed, in 1776. 
In this chamber, round a great fire, were seated five Judges, 
with Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson at their head, as Chief 
Justice, all arrayed in their new, fresh, rich robes of scarlet EngHsh 

57 






broadcloth; in their large cambric bands, and immense judicial 
wigs. In this chamber were seated at a long table all the barristers 
at law of Boston, and of the neighboring county of Middlesex, 
in gowns, bands, and tie wigs. They were not seated on ivory 
chairs, but their dress was more solemn and more pompous 
than that of the Roman Senate, when the Gauls broke in upon 
them. 

In a corner of the room must' be placed as a spectator and 
an auditor, wit, sense, imagination, genius, pathos, reason, pru- 
dence, eloquence, learning, and immense reading, hanging by 
the shoulders on two crutches, covered with a great cloth coat, 
in the person of Mr. Pratt, who had been solicited on both sides, 
but would engage on neither, being, as Chief Justice of New 
York, about to leave Boston forever. Two portraits, at more 
than full length, of King Charles the Second and of King James 
the Second, in splendid golden frames, were hung up on the 
most conspicuous sides of the apartment. If my young eyes 
or old memory have not deceived me, these were as fine pictures 
as I ever saw; the colors of the royal ermines and long flowing 
robes were the most glowing, the figures the most noble and 
graceful, the features the most distinct and characteristic, far 
superior to those of the King and Queen of France in the Senate 
chamber of Congress — these were worthy of the pencils of Rubens 
and Vandyke. There w^as no painter in England capable of 
them at that time. They had been sent over without frames 
in Governor Pownall's time, but he w^as no admirer of Charles 
or James. The pictures were stowed away in a garret, among 
rubbish, till Governor Bernard came, who had them cleaned, 
,«. 'Superbly framed, and placed in council for the admiration and 

'•limitation of all men — no doubt with the advice and concurrence 
• »• 

of Hutchinson and all his nebula of stars and satellites. 

One circumstance more. Samuel Quincy and John Adams 
had been admitted barristers at that term. John was the young- 
est. He should be painted looking like a short thick archbishop 
of Canterbury, seated at the table with a pen in his hand, lost 
in admiration, now and then minuting those poor notes which 
your pupil. Judge Minot, has printed in his history,* with some 
interpolations. I will copy them from the book, and then point 
out those interpolations. f 

* Vol. ii pp. 89-99. 

t The extract is omitted. The speech is printed, with the omission of the interpolations, in 
vol. ii. of the works of John Adams, Appendix, p. 523. It was not in the letter as first pub- 
lished 

58 



You have now the stage and the scenery. Next follows a 
narration of the subject. I rather think that we lawyers ought 
to call it a brief of the cause. 

When the British ministry received from General Amherst 
his despatches, announcing the conquest of Montreal, and the 
consequent annihilation of the French government in America, 
in 1759, they immediately conceived the design, and took the 
resolution, of conquering the English colonies, and subjecting 
them to the unlimited authority of Parliament. With this view 
and intention they sent orders and instructions to the collector 
of the customs in Boston, Mr. Charles Paxton, to apply to the 
civil authority for writs of assistance, to enable the custom- 
house officers, tide-waiters, land-waiters, and all, to command all 
sheriffs and constables, &c., to attend and aid them in breaking 
open houses, stores, shops, cellars, ships, bales, trunks, chests, 
casks, packages of all sorts, to search for goods, wares, and mer- 
chandise, which had been imported against the prohibitions 
or without paying the taxes imposed by certain acts of Parlia- 
ment, called the acts of trade; that is, by certain parliamentary 
statutes, which had been procured to be passed from time to 
time for a century before, by a combination of selfish intrigues 
between West India planters and North American royal governors. 
These acts never had been executed as revenue laws, and there 
never had been a time, when they would have been or could have 
been obeyed as such. 

Mr. Paxton, no doubt consulting with Governor Bernard, 
Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, and all the principal crown 
officers, thought it not prudent to commence his operations in 
Boston. For obvious reasons, he instructed his deputy collector 
in Salem, Mr. Cockle; to apply by petition to the Superior Court, 
in November, 1760, then sitting in that town, for writs of assist- 
ance. Stephen Sewall was then Chief Justice of that Court, 
an able man, an uncorrupted American, and a sincere friend 
of hberty, civil and religious. He expressed great doubts of 
the legaHty of such a writ, and of the. authority of the Court to 
grant it. Not one of his brother judges uttered a word in favor 
of it; but as it was an application on the part of the crown, it 
m.ust be heard and determined. After consultation, the Court 
ordered the question to be argued at the next February term in 
Boston, namely in 176 1. 

In the mean time Chief Justice SewaU died, and Lieutenant- 
Governor Hutchinson was appointed Chief Justice of that Court 

59 



in his stead. Every observing and thinking man knew that this 
appointment was made for the direct purpose of deciding this 
question in favor of the crown, and all others in which it should 
be interested. An alarm was spread far and wide. Merchants of 
Salem and Boston applied to Mr. Pratt, who refused, and to Mr. 
Otis and Mr. Thacher, who accepted, to defend them against the 
terrible menacing monster, the writ of assistance. Great fees 
were offered, but Otis, and, I believe, Thacher, would accept of 
none. "In such a cause," said Otis, "I despise all fees." 

I have given you a sketch of the stage, and the scenery, and 
the brief of the cause, or, if you like the phrase better, the tragedy, 
comedy, or farce. 

Now for the actors and performers. Mr. Gridley argued w^ith 
his characteristic learning, ingenuity, and dignity, and said 
everything that could be said in favor of Cockle's petition; all 
depending, however, on the "if the Parliament of Great Britain 
is the sovereign legislature of all the British empire." Mr. Thacher 
followed him on the other side, and argued with the softness of 
manners, the ingenuity and cool reasoning, which were remarkable 
in his amiable character. 

But Otis was a flame of fire! — with a promptitude of classical 
allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical 
events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic 
glance of his eye into futurity, and a torrent of impetuous elo- 
quence, he hurried away every thing before him. American 
independence was then and there born; the seeds of patriots 
and heroes were then and there sown, to defend the vigorous 
youth, the iton sine Diis animosus injans. Every man of a 
crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready 
to take arms against writs of assistance. Then and there was the 
first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims 
of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was 
born. In fifteen years, namely in 1776, he grew up to manhood, 
and declared himself free. 

The Court adjourned for consideration, and after some days, 
at the close of the term, Hutchinson, the Chief Justice, arose and 
said, "The Court has considered the subject of writs of assist- 
ance, and can see no foundation for such a writ; but, as the 
practice in England is not known, it has been thought best to 
continue the question until next term, that in the mean time 
opportunity may be given to write to England for information 
concerning the subject." In six months the next term arrived, 
60 



5 

but no judgment was pronounced, no letters from England 
were produced, and nothing more was ever said in Court con- 
cerning writs of assistance; but it was generally reported and 
understood that the Court clandestinely granted them, and the 
custom-house officers had them in their pockets, though I never 
knew that they dared to produce them or execute them in any 
one instance. 

Mr. Otis's popularity was without bounds. In May, 1761, he 
was elected into the House of Representatives by an almost 
unanimous vote. On the week of his election, I happened to 
be at Worcester, attending the Court of Common Pleas, of which 
Brigadier Ruggles was Chief Justice, when the news arrived 
from Boston of Mr. Otis's election. You can have no idea of 
the consternation among the government people. Chief Justice 
Ruggles, at dinner at Colonel Chandler's on that day, said, 
''Out of this election will arise a d — d faction, which will shake 
this province to its foundation." Ruggles's foresight reached 
not beyond his nose. That election has shaken two continents, 
and will shake all four. For ten years Mr. Otis, at the head 
of his country's cause, conducted the town of Boston, and the 
people of the province, with a prudence and fortitude, at every 
sacrifice of personal interest, and amidst unceasing persecution, 
which would have done honor to the most virtuous patriot or 
martyr of antiquity. 

The minutes of Mr. Otis's argument are no better a representa- 
tion of it than the gleam of a glow-worm to the meridian blaze 
of the sun. I fear I shall make you repent bringing out the old 
gentleman. Ridendo dicer e verum quid vetat? 



TO WILLIAM TUDOR. 

QuiNCY, 15 April, 181 7. 
I have received your obliging favor of the 8th, but cannot 
consent to your resolution to ask no more questions. Your 
questions revive my sluggish memory. Since our national legis- 
lature have established a national painter, — a wise measure, for 
which I thank them, — my imagination runs upon the art, and 
has already painted, I Imow not how many, historical pictures. 
I have sent you one ; give me leave to send another. The bloody 

61 



rencounter between the citizens and the soldiers, on the 5th of 
March, 1770, produced a tremendous sensation throughout the 
town and country. The people assembled first at Faneuil Hall, 
and adjourned to the Old South Church, to the number, as was 
conjectured, of ten or twelve thousand men, among whom were 
the most virtuous, substantial, independent, disinterested, and 
intelHgent citizens. They formed themselves into a regular 
dehberative body, chose their moderator and secretary, entered 
into discussions, deliberations, and debates, adopted resolutions, 
appointed committees. What has become of these records, Mr. 
Tudor? Where are they? Their resolutions in pubHc were 
conformable to those of every man in private, who dared to 
express his thoughts or his feelings, ''that the regular soldiers 
should be banished from the town at all hazards." Jonathan- 
WiUiams, a very pious, inoffensive, and conscientious gentleman, 
was their Moderator. A remonstrance to the Governor, or the 
Governor and Council, was ordained, and a demand that the 
regular troops should be removed from the town. A committee 
was appointed to present this remonstrance, of which Samuel 
Adams was the chairman. 

Now for the picture. The theatre and the scenery are the 
same with those at the discussion of writs of assistance. The 
same glorious portraits of King Charles II. and King James II., 
to which might be added, and should be added, little miserable 
likenesses of Governor Winthrop, Governor Bradstreet, Gov- 
ernor Endicott, and Governor Belcher, hung up in obscure corners 
of the room. Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, commander- 
in-chief in the absence of the Governor, must be placed at the head 
of the council table. Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple, commander- 
in-chief of his Majesty's military forces, taking rank of ah his 
Majesty's counsellors, must be seated by the side of the Lieu- 
tenant-Governor and commander-in-chief of the province. Eight- 
and-twenty counsellors must be painted, all seated at the council 
board. Let me see — what costume? What was the fashion 
of that day, in the month of March ? Large white wigs, English 
scarlet cloth cloaks, some of them with gold-laced hats, not 
on their heads, indeed, in so august a presence, but on the table 
before them, or under* the table beneath them. Before these 
illustrious personages appeared Samuel Adams, a member 
of the House of Representatives and their clerk, now at the 
head of the committee of the great assembly at the Old South 
Church. Thucydides, Livy, or Sallust would make a speech 
62 



for him, or, perhaps, the Italian Botta, if he had known any thing 
of this transaction, — one of the most important of the revolution, — 
but I am wholly incapable of it; and, if I had vanity enough to 
think myself capable of it, should not dare to attempt it. He 
represented the state of the town and the country; the dangerous, 
ruinous, and fatal effects of standing armies in populous cities 
in time of peace, and the determined resolution of the public, 
that the regular troops, at all events, should be removed from 
the town. Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, then commander- 
in-chief, at the head of a trembHng council, said, ''he had no 
authority over the king's troops; that they had their separate 
commander and separate orders and instructions, and that he 
could not interfere with them." Mr. Adams instantly appealed 
to the charter of the province, by which the Governor, and in 
his absence the Lieutenant-Governor, was constituted com- 
mander-in-chief of all the military and naval power within its 
jurisdiction. So obviously true and so irrefragable was the 
reply, that it is astonishing that Mr. Hutchinson should have so 
grossly betrayed the Constitution, and so atrociously have vio- 
lated the duties of his office by asserting the contrary. But 
either the fears or the ambition of this gentleman, upon this 
and many other occasions, especially in his controversy with the 
tw^o houses, three years afterwards, on the supremacy of Parlia- 
ment, appear to have totally disarranged his understanding. 
He certainly asserted in public, in the most solemn manner, 
a multitude of the roundest falsehoods, which he must have 
know^n to be such, and which he must have known could be easily 
and would certainly be detected, if he had not wholly lost his 
memory, even of his ow^n pubHc writings. You, Mr. Tudor, 
knew Mr. Adams from your childhood to his death. In his 
common appearance he was a plain, simple, decent citizen, 
of middling stature, dress, and manners. He had an exquisite 
ear for music, and a charming voice, when he pleased to exert 
it. Yet his ordinary speeches in town meetings, in the House 
of Representatives, and in Congress exhibited nothing extra- 
ordinary; but, upon great occasions, when his deeper feehngs 
were excited, he erected himself, or rather nature seemed to 
erect him, without the smallest symptom of affectation, into an 
upright dignity of figure and gesture, and gave a harmony to 
his voice which made a strong impression on spectators and 
auditors, — the more lasting for the purity, correctness, and 
nervous elegance of his style. 

^3 



8 

This was a delicate and a dangerous crisis. The question in 
the last resort was, whether the town of Boston should become 
a scene of carnage and desolation, or not? Humanity to the 
soldiers conspired with a regard for the safety of the town, in 
suggesting the wise measure of calHng the town together to de- 
liberate. For nothing short of the most solemn promises to 
the people that the soldiers should, at all hazards, be driven 
from the town, had preserved its peace. Not only the immense 
assemblies of the people from day to day, but military arrange- 
ments from night to night, were necessary to keep the people 
and the soldiers from getting together by the ears. The life of 
a red coat would not have been safe in any street or corner of 
the town. Nor would the lives of the inhabitants have been 
much more secure. The whole militia of the city was in requi- 
sition, and military watches and guards were everywhere placed. 
We were all upon a level; no man was exempted; our military 
officers were our only superiors. I had the honor to be sum- 
moned, in my turn, and attended at the State House with my 
musket and bayonet, my broadsword and cartridge-box, under 
the command of the famous Paddock. I know you will laugh 
at my mihtary figure; but I believe there was not a more obe- 
dient soldier in the regiment, nor one more impartial between 
the people and the regulars. In this character I was upon duty 
all night in my turn. No man appeared more anxious or more 
deeply impressed with a sense of danger on all sides than our 
commander. Paddock. He called me, common soldier as I 
was, frequently to his councils. I had a great deal of conver- 
sation with him, and no man appeared more apprehensive of a 
fatal calamity to the town or more zealous by every prudent 
measure to prevent it. 

Such was the situation of affairs, when Samuel Adams was 
reasoning with Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson and Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Dalrymple. He had fairly driven them from all 
their outworks, breastworks, and entrenchments, to their cita-' 
del. There they paused and considered and deliberated. The 
heads of Hutchinson and Dalrymple were laid together in whis- 
pers for a long time; when the whispering ceased, a long and 
solemn pause ensued, extremely painful to an impatient, expect- 
ing audience. Hutchinson, in time, broke silence. He had 
consulted with Colonel Dalrymple, and the Colonel had authorized 
him to say, that he might order one regiment down to the castle, 
if that would satisfy the people. With a self-recollection, a 
64 



self-possession, a self-command, a presence of mind that was 
admired by every man present, Samuel Adams arose with an air 
of dignity and majesty, of which he was sometimes capable, 
stretched forth his arm, though even then quivering with palsy, 
and with an harmonious voice and decisive tone said, "If the 
Lieutenant-Governor or Colonel Dalrymple, or both together, 
have authority to remove one regiment, they have authority 
to remove two, and nothing short of the total evacuation of the 
town by all the regular troops will satisfy the public mind or 
preserve the peace of the province." 

These few^ w^ords thrilled through the veins of every man in 
the audience, and produced the great result. After a little awk- 
ward hesitation, it was agreed that the town should be evacu- 
ated, and both regiments sent to the castle. 

After all this gravity, it is merry enough to relate that Will- 
iam Molineux was obliged to march side by side with the com- 
mander of some of these troops, to protect them from the indig- 
nation of the people, in their progress to the wharf of embarcation 
for the castle. Nor is it less amusing that Lord North, as I 
was repeatedly and credibly informed in England, with his 
characteristic mixture of good humor and sarcasm, ever after 
called these troops by the title of "Sam Adams's two regiments." 

The painter should seize upon the critical moment, when 
Samuel Adams stretched out his arm, and made his last speech. 

It will be as difi&cult to do justice as to paint an Apollo; and 
the transaction deserves to be painted as much as the surrender 
of Burgo}Tie. Whether any artist will ever attempt it, I know 
not. 



TO WILLIAM TUDOR. 

QuixCY, June i, 1817. 

That Mr. Hutchinson repented as sincerely as Mr. Hamilton 
did, I doubt not. I hope the repentance of both has been ac- 
cepted, and their faults pardoned. And I hope I have repented, 
do repent, and shall ever repent of mine, and meet them both 
in another world, w^here there will need no repentance. Such 
vicissitudes of fortune command compassion; I pity even Na- 
poleon. 

You "never profoundlv admired Mr. Hancock. He had 

65 



lO 

vanity and caprice." I can say, with truth, that I profoundly 
admired him, and more profoundly loved him. If he had vanity 
and caprice, so had I. And if his vanity and caprice made me 
sometimes sputter, as you know they often did, mine, I well 
know, had often a similar effect upon him. But these little 
flickerings of little passions determine nothing concerning essential 
characters. I knew Mr. Hancock from his cradle to his grave. 
He was radically generous and benevolent. He was born in 
this town, half w^ay between this house and our congregational 
temple, son of a clergyman of this parish, and grandson of a 
clerg3^man of Lexington, both of excellent characters. We were 
at the same school together, as soon as we were out of petticoats. 
His father died when he was very young. His uncle, the most 
opulent merchant in Boston, who had no children, adopted him, 
placed him in Mr. Lovell's school, educated him at Harvard 
college, and then took him into his store. And what a school 
was this! Four large ships constantly plying between Boston 
and London, and other business in proportion. This was in 
1755. He became an example to all the young men of the town. 
Wholly devoted to business, he was as regular and punctual at 
his store as the sun in his course. His uncle sent him to London, 
from whence, after a residence of about a year, he returned to 
his store, with the same habits of business, unaltered in manners 
or deportment, and pursued his employments with the same 
punctuality and assiduity, till the death of his uncle, who left 
him his business, his credit, his capital, and his fortune; who 
did more — he left him the protector of his widow. This lady, 
though her husband left her a handsome independence, would 
have sunk into oblivion, like so many other most excellent widows, 
had not the public attention been fastened upon her by the fame 
of her nephew. Never was a nephew to an aunt more affectionate, 
dutiful, or respectful. No alteration appeared in Mr. Hancock, 
either from his travels in England, or from his accession to the 
fortune of his uncle. The same steady, regular, punctual, in- 
dustrious, indefatigable man of business; and, to complete his 
character with the ladies, always genteelly dressed, according 
to the fashions of those days. 

What shall I say of his fortune, his ships? His commerce 
was a great one. Your honored father told me, at that time, 
that not less than a thousand families were, every day in the 
year, dependent on Mr. Hancock for their daily bread. Con- 
sider his real estate in Boston, in the country, in Connecticut, 
66 



II 

and the rest of New England. Had Mr. Hancock fallen asleep- 
to this day, he would now awake one of the richest men. Had 
he persevered in business as a private merchant, he might have 
erected a house of Medicis. Providence, however, did not in- 
tend or permit, in this instance, such a calamity to mankind. 
Mr. Hancock was the delight of the eyes of the whole town. 
There can be no doubt that he might have had his choice, and 
he had his choice of a companion; and that choice was very 
natural, a granddaughter of the great patron and most revered 
friend of his father. Beauty, politeness, and every domestic 
virtue justified his predilection. 

At the time of this prosperity, I was one day walking in the 
mall, and, accidentally, met Samuel Adams. In taking a few 
turns together, w^e came in full view of Mr. Hancock's house. 
Mr. Adams, pointing to the stone building, said, "This town 
has done a wise thing to-day." "What?" "They have made 
that young man's fortune their own." His prophecy was lite- 
rally fulfilled; for no man's property was ever more entirely 
devoted to the public. The town had, that day, chosen Mr. 
Hancock into the legislature of the province. The quivering 
anxiety of the public, under the fearful looking for of the ven- 
geance of king, ministry, and parliament, compelled him to a 
constant attendance in the House; his mind was soon engrossed 
by public cares, alarms, and terrors; his business was left to 
subalterns; his private affairs neglected, and continued to be 
so to the end of his life. If his fortune had not been very 
large, he must have died as poor as Mr. S. Adams or Mr. 
Gerry. 

I am not writing the life of Mr. Hancock; his biography would 
fill as many volumes as Marshall's Washington, and be quite as 
instructive and entertaining. Though I never injured or justly 
offended him, and though I spent much of my time, and suffered 
unknown anxiety, in defending his property, reputation, and 
liberty from persecution, I cannot but reflect upon myself for 
not paying him more respect than I did in his lifetime. His 
life will, however, not ever be written. But if statues, obelisks, 
P3n:amids, or divine honors were ever merited by men, of cities 
or nations, James Otis, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock, 
deserved these from the town of Boston and the United States. 
Such adulations, however, are monopolized by profligate libel- 
lers, by cringing flatterers, by unprincipled ambition, by sordid 
avarice, by griping usurers, by scheming speculators, by plun- 

67 



12 

dering bankers, by blind enthusiasts, by superstitious bigots, by 
puppies and butterflies, and by everything but honor and 
virtue. Hence the universal slavery of the human species. Hence 
a commentary on the well known and most expressive figure of 
rhetoric, "It grieved the Almighty, at his heart, that he had 
made man." Nevertheless, this is a good world, and I thank 
the Almighty that he has made man. 

Mr. Hancock had a delicate constitution. He was very in- 
firm. A great part of his life was passed in acute pain. He 
inherited from his father, though one of the most amiable and 
beloved of men, a certain sensibility, a keenness of feeling, or, 
in more familiar language, a peevishness of temper, that some- 
times disgusted and afflicted his friends. Yet it was astonish- 
ing with what patience, perseverance, and punctuality he at- 
tended to business to the last. Nor were his talents or attain- 
ments inconsiderable. They were far superior to many who 
have been much more celebrated. He had a great deal of poHtical 
sagacity and penetration into men. He was by no means a 
contemptible scholar or orator. Compared with Washington, 
Lincoln, or Knox, he was learned. So much, for the present, 
of Mr. Hancock. 

When, in the beginning of this letter, I agreed with you in 
your opinion of Mr. Hutchinson's repentance, I should have 
added, he had great reason for repentance. Fled, in his old 
age, from the detestation of a country, where he had been be- 
loved, esteemed, and admired, and applauded with exaggera- 
tion — in short, where he had been everything, from his infancy — 
to a country where he was nothing; pinched by a pension, which, 
though ample in Boston, would barely keep a house in London; 
throwing round his baleful eyes on the exiled companions of 
his folly; hearing daily of the slaughter of his countrymen and 
conflagration of their cities; abhorred by the greatest men 
and soundest part of the nation, and neglected, if not despised, 
by the rest, hardened as had been my heart against him, I assure 
you I was melted at the accounts I heard of his condition. Lord 
Townsend told me that he put an end to his own life. Though 
I did not believe this, I know he was ridiculed by the courtiers. 
They laughed at his manners at the levee, at his perpetual quo- 
tations of his brother Foster, searching his pockets for letters 
to read to the king, and the king turning away from him with his 
head up, &c. 



68 



A few words concerning S. Adams in my next. 



13 



TO WILLIAM TUDOR. 



QuixcY, 5 June, 1817. 

You "never profound!}' admired ^Nlr. Hancock." I have sug- 
gested some hints in his favor. You "never profoundly ad- 
mired Mr. Samuel Adams." I have promised you an apology 
for him. You may think it a weak one, for I have no talent 
at paneg}Tic or apology. "There are all sorts of men in the 
world." This observation, you may say, is self-evident and 
futile; yet Mr. Locke thought it not unworthy of him to make 
it, and, if we reflect upon it, there is more meaning in it than 
meets the eye at the first blush. 

You say, Mr. S. Adams "had too much sternness and pious 
bigotry." A man in his situation and circumstances must pos- 
sess a large fund of sternness of stuff, or he will soon be anni- 
hilated. His piety ought not to be objected to him, or any other 
man. His bigotry, if he had any, was a fault; but he certainly 
had not more than Governor Hutchinson and Secretary Oliver, 
who, I know from personal conversation, were as stanch Trini- 
tarians and Calvinists as he was, and treated all Arians and 
Arminians with more contempt and scorn than he ever did. 
Mr. Adams lived and conversed freely with all sectarians, in 
philosophy and divinity. He never imposed his creed on any 
one, or endeavored to make proselytes to his religious opinions. 
He was as far from sentencing any man to perdition, who differed 
from him, as Mr. Holley, Dr. Kirkland, or Dr. Freeman. If 
he was a Calvinist, a Calvinist he had been educated, and so 
had been all his ancestors for two hundred years. He had been, 
from his childhood, too much devoted to politics to be a pro- 
found student in metaphysics and theology, or to make extensive 
researches or deep investigations into such subjects. Nor had 
any other man attempted it, in this nation, in that age, if any 
one has attempted it since. Mr. Adams was an original — stii 
generis, sui juris. The variety of human characters is infinite. 
Nature seems to delight in showing the inexhaustibility of her 
resources. There never were two men alike, from the first man 
to the last, any more than two pebbles or two peas. 

Mr. Adams was born and tempered a wedge of steel to split 
the knot of lignum vit(B, which tied North America to Great 
Britain. Blunderheaded as were the British ministry, they had 
sagacity enough to discriminate from all others, for inexorable 

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vengeance, the two men most to be dreaded by them, Samuel 
Adams and John Hancock; and had not James Otis been then 
dead, or worse than dead, his name would have been at the 
head of the triumvirate. 



James Otis, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock were the 
three most essential characters; and Great Britain knew it, 
though America does not. Great and important and excellent 
characters, aroused and excited by these, arose in Pennsylvania, 
Virginia, New York, South Carolina, and in all the other States, 
but these three were the first movers, the most constant, steady, 
persevering springs, agents, and most disinterested sufferers 
and firmest pillars of the whole Revolution. I shall not attempt 
even to draw the outlines of the biography of Mr. Samuel Adams. 
Who can attempt it? 

" QucB ante conditam condendamve urhem, poeticis magis decora 
fabidis, quam incorruptis reriim gestarum monumentis traduntur, 
m"* nee possum refellere. Quia non tempus, nee oculos, nee Ma- 
nns habeo. But, if I had time, eyes, and fingers at my command, 
where should I find documents and memorials? Without the 
character of Samuel Adams, the true history of the American 
Revolution can never be written. For fifty years, his pen, his 
tongue, his activity, were constantly exerted for his country 
without fee or reward. During that time, he was an almost 
incessant writer. But w^here are his writings ? Who can collect 
them ? And, if collected, who will ever read them ? The letters 
he wrote and received, where are they? I have seen him at 
Mrs. Yard's in Philadelphia, when he was about to leave Congress, 
cut up with his scissors whole bundles of letters into atoms that 
could never be reunited, and throw them out of the window, 
to be scattered by the winds. This was in summer, when he 
had no fire. In winter he threw whole handfuls into the fire. 
As we were on terms of perfect intimacy, I have joked him, 
perhaps rudely, upon his anxious caution. His answer was, 
"Whatever becomes of me, my friends shall never suffer by 
my negligence." This may be thought a less significant anec- 
dote than another. Mr. Adams left the letters he had received 
and preserved in possession of his widow. This lady, as was 
natural, lent them to a confidential friend of her husband, Mr. 

* Livy finishes the sentence thus, nee a,firmare nee refellere, in animo est. The additicn 
in the text is by the writer. 

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15 

Avery, who then was, and had been secretary of the common- 
wealth under the administration of Mr. Adams and Mr. Hancock. 
Mr. Avery informed me, that he '' had them, and that they were 
a complete history of the Revolution." I will not say into whose 
hands they fell, after Mr. Avery's death, and I cannot say where 
they are now; but I have heard that a gentleman in Charlestown, 
Mr. Austin, undertook to write the life of Mr. Adams; but, 
finding his papers had been so garbled that the truth could not 
be discovered, he abandoned his design. Never will those 
letters, which Secretary Avery possessed, be brought together 
again; nor will they ever be found. So much for Mr. Adams, 
at present. Now for Mr. Otis. 

I write no biographies or biographical sketches; I give only 
hints. James Otis was descended from our most ancient families. 
His education was the best his country afforded. He was bred 
to the bar under Mr. Gridley, the greatest lawyer and the greatest 
classic scholar I ever knew at any bar. His application was 
incessant and indefatigable. Justice Richard Dana has often 
told me, that the apartment in which Otis studied, when a pupil 
and a clerk of Mr. Gridley, was near his house; that he had 
watched him from day to day, and that he had never known 
a student in law so punctual, so steady, so constant and perse- 
vering. Accordingly, as soon as he was admitted to the bar, 
he became a conspicuous figure. And among whom? Gridley, 
Pratt, Trowbridge; and he was much admired, and as much 
celebrated as any of them. His generous, m.anly, noble character, 
as a private gentleman, his uncommon attainments in literature, 
especially in the law, and his nervous, commanding eloquence 
at the bar, were everywhere spoken of. The government soon 
discerned his superiority, and commissioned him Advocate- 
General. He married a lady, who, in that day, was esteemed 
a fortune. From 1755 to 1758, I heard my master. Colonel 
James Putnam, of Worcester, who was a critical judge, and Mr. 
Trowbridge, the then Attorney-General, and his lady, constantly 
speaking of Otis as the greatest, the most learned, the most 
manly, and most honest young man of his age. All this was 
before I had ever seen Mr. Otis. I never saw him till late in 
the autumn of 1758, nor Mr. Samuel Adams till after that year. 

To sum up in a few words, the two young men, whom I have 
known to enter the stage of life with the most luminous, un- 
clouded prospects, and the best founded hopes, were James 
Otis and John Hancock. They were both essential to the Rev- 

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i6 

olution, and both fell sacrifices to it. Mr. Otis, from 1760 to 
1770, had correspondences in this province, in New England, 
in the middle and southern colonies, in England, and in Scot- 
land. What has become of these letters and answers ? 

Mr. Otis, soon after my earliest acquaintance with him, lent 
me a summary of Greek Prosody of his own collection and com- 
position, a work of profound learning and great labor. I had 
it six months in my possession, before I returned it. Since 
my return from Europe, I asked his daughter whether she had 
found that work among her father's manuscripts. She answered 
me with a countenance of woe that you may more easily imagine 
than I can describe, that she "had not a line from her father's 
pen; that he had spent much time, and taken great pains, to 
collect together all his letters and other papers, and, in one of 
his unhappy moments, committed them all to the flames." I 
have used her own expressions. 

Such has been the fate of the memorials of Mr. James Otis 
and Mr. Samuel Adams. It was not without reason, then, that 
I wrote to Mr. Niles, of Baltimore, that the true history of the 
American Revolution is lost forever. I could write volumes of 
other proofs of the same truth, before, during, and since the 
Revolution. But cid bono ? They would be read by very few, 
and by very few of those few would be credited, and, by this 
minimum of a few, would be imputed to the vanity, egotism, 
ill humor, envy, jealousy, and disappointed ambition of your 
sincere friend, John Adams; for the character of this nation is 
strangely altered. 



TO WILLIAM WIRT. 

QuiNCY, 5 January, 1818. 
Your sketches of the life of Mr. Henry have given me a rich 
entertainment. I will not compare them to the Sybil conduct- 
ing iEneas to see the ghosts of departed sages and heroes in 
the region below, but to an angel conveying me to the abodes 
of the blessed on high, to converse with the spirits of just men 
made perfect. The names of Henry, Lee, Bland, Pendleton, 
Washington, Rutledge, Dickinson, Wythe, and many others, 
will ever thrill through my veins with an agreeable sensation. 
I am not about to make any critical remarks upon your work, 
at present. But, Sir, 
72 



Erant heroes ante Agamemnona multi. 

Or, not to garble Horace, 

Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona 
Multi; sed omnes illacrimabiles 
Urguentur, ignotique longa 
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro. 

If I could go back to the age of thirty-five, Mr. Wirt, I would 
endeavor to become your rival; not in elegance of composition, 
but in a simple narration of facts, supported by records, histories, 
and testimonies, of irrefragable authority. I would adopt, 
in all its modesty, your title, " Sketches of the Life and Writings 
of James Otis, of Boston," and, in imitation of your example, I 
would introduce portraits of a long catalogue of illustrious men, 
who were agents in the Revolution, in favor of it or against it. 

Jeremiah Gridley, the father of the Bar in Boston, and the 
preceptor of Pratt, Otis, Thacher, Gushing, and many others; 
Benjamin Pratt, Chief Justice of New York; Colonel John 
Tyng, James Otis, of Boston, the hero of the biography; Oxen- 
bridge Thacher, Jonathan Sewall, Attorney-General and Judge 
of Admiralty; Samuel Quincy, Solicitor-General; Daniel Leon- 
ard, now Chief Justice of Bermuda; Josiah Quincy, the Boston 
Cicero; Richard Dana, and Francis Dana, his son, first minister 
to Russia, and afterwards Chief Justice; Jonathan Mayhew, 
D.D., Samuel Cooper, D.D., Charles Chauncy, D.D., James 
Warren and his w^ife; Joseph Warren, of Bunker's Hill; John 
Winthrop, Professor at Harvard College, and a member of Council; 
Samuel Dexter, the father; John Worthington, of Springfield; 
Joseph Hawley, of Northampton, and James Lovell, of Boston; 
Governors Shirley, Pownall, Bernard, Hutchinson, Hancock, 
Bow^doin, Adams, Sullivan, and Gerry; Lieutenant-Governor 
Ohver, Chief Justice Oliver, Judge Edmund Trowbridge, Judge 
William Cushing, and Timothy Ruggles, ought not to be omitted. 
The mihtary characters, Ward, Lincoln, Warren, Knox, Brooks, 
Heath, &c., must come in, of course. Nor should Benjamin 
Kent, Samuel Swift, or John Read, be forgotten. 

I envy none of tlie well-merited glories of Virginia, or any of 
her sages or heroes. But, Sir, I am jealous, very jealous, of 
the honor of Massachusetts. 

The resistance to the British system for subjugating the col- 
onies, began in 1760, and in the month of February, 1761, James 
Otis electrified the town of Boston, the province of Massachu- 



i8 

setts Bay, and the whole continent, more than Patrick Henry 
'ever did in the whole course of his life. If we must have pane- 
gyric and hyperbole, I must say, that if Mr. Henry was Demos- 
thenes and Mr. Richard Henry Lee, Cicero, James Otis was 
Isaiah and Ezekiel united. 

I hope. Sir, that some young gentleman of the ancient and 
honorable family of the "Searches," will hereafter do impartial 
justice both to Virginia and Massachusetts. 

After all this freedom, I assure you. Sir, it is no flattery, when 
I congratulate the nation on the acquisition of an Attorney- 
General of such talents and industry as your ''Sketches" 
demonstrate. 



TO WILLIAM WIRT. 

QuiNCY, 7 March, 1818. 

Be pleased to accept my cordial thanks for the present of an 
•elegant copy of your Sketches of Mr. Henry. I know not w^hether 
I shall ever have time to make you any other return than thanks; 
but, as I see you wish to investigate the sources of the American 
Revolution, if you w^ill give me leave, I will give you such hints 
as my memory affords, to assist you. 

In 1764 was published, in Boston, a pretty littla pamphlet, 
"The Sentiments of a British American," the motto of which 
ought to have warned Great Britain to desist from her t)Tan- 
nical system of taxation. 

Asellum in prato timidus pascebat senex. 
Is, hostium clamore subito territus, 
Suadebat asino fugere, ne possent capi. 
At ille lentus: quaeso, num binas mihi 
Clitellas impositurum victorem putas? 
Senex negavit. Ergo quid refert mea 
Cui serviam ? clitellas dum portem meas. 

Phaedrus. 

Considering "An Act for granting certain duties in the British 
•colonies and plantations in America," of the 4 G. III., he says: 
"The first objection is, that a tax is laid on several commodi- 
ties, to be raised and levied in the plantations, and to be remitted 
home to England. This is esteemed as a grievance, inasmuch 
as they are laid without the consent of the representatives of 
the colonists. It is esteemed an essential British right, that 
74 



19 

no person shall be subject to any tax, but what, in person or by 
his representative, he has a voice in laying." 

I am indebted to you. Sir, for the reperusal of this pretty little 
thing. I had never seen it for fifty-four years, and should never 
have seen it again; but your book has excited me, having no 
copy of it, to borrow it as a great favor for a short time. It 
was written by Oxenbridge Thacher, a barrister at law in Bos- 
ton. There is so much resemblance between this pamphlet 
and Mr. Jay's address to the people of England, written ten 
years afterwards, that, as Johnson said of his Rasselas and Vol- 
taire's Candide, one might be suspected to have given birth to 
the other. 

In 1764 was pubhshed, in Boston, "The Rights of the British 
Colonies Asserted and Proved," by James Otis, Esq. This 
work was read in the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, 
in manuscript, in 1764, and, though not ordered by them to be 
published, it was printed with their knowledge. In it these 
propositions are asserted as fundamental. 

"i. That the supreme and subordinate powers of legislation 
should be free and sacred in the hands where the community 
have once rightfully placed them. 

2. The supreme, national legislative cannot be altered justly 
till the commonwealth is dissolved, nor a subordinate legislative 
taken away without forfeiture or other good cause. Nor then 
can the subjects in the subordinate government be reduced to 
a state of slavery, and subject to the despotic rule of others. 

3. No legislative, supreme or subordinate, has a right to 
make itself arbitrary. 

4. The supreme legislative cannot justly assume" a power of 
ruling by ex tempore arbitrary decrees, but is bound to dispense 
justice by known, settled rules, and by duly authorized, inde- 
pendent judges. 

5. The supreme power cannot take from any man any part 
of his property, without his consent in person, or by repre- 
sentation. 

6. The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws 
to any other hands " 

In an appendix to this work is a copy of instructions, given 
by the city of Boston at their annual meeting, in May, 1764, to 
their representatives. Royal Tyler, James Otis, Thomas Gush- 
ing, and Oxenbridge Thacher, Esqrs. These instructions were 
drawn by Samuel Adams, who was one of those appointed by 

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 698 360 6 * 



the town for that purpose. These instructions are a sample 
of that simphcity, purity, and harmony of style, which distin- 
guished all the productions of Mr. Adams's pen. I wish I could 
transcribe the whole; but the paragraph most directly to the 
present purpose is the following: — "But what still heightens our 
apprehensions is, that these unexpected proceedings may be pre- 
paratory to new taxations upon us. For, if our trade may be 
taxed, why not our lands ? Why not the produce of our lands, 
and every thing we possess or make use of ? This, we apprehend, 
annihilates our charter right to govern and tax ourselves. It 
strikes at our British privileges, which, as we have never forfeited 
them, we hold in common with our fellow-subjects, who are na- 
tives of Britain. If taxes are laid upon us in any shape, without 
our having a legal representation where they are laid, are we 
not reduced from the character of free subjects to the miserable 
state of tributary slaves?" This whole work was pubHshed 
more than a year before Mr. Henry's resolutions were moved. 



John Adams, in passages in the foregoing letters, laments that important papers which 
had been prepared by Samuel Adams and James Otis were destroyed, and that with them 
"the true history of the American Revolution is lost forever." This word is perhaps too 
strong, but certain it is that nothing brings us into such close touch with the Revolution as 
the words of the actors in it. Among all the actors in those stirring scenes, none was a more 
graphic writer than John Adams himself; and we have in his large correspondence and other 
papers pictures of the Revolution and the stirring time before it which have a vividness and 
a historical value not surpassed by any similar writings relating to the period. A few of his 
letters to William Tudor and WiUiam Wirt are given in the present leaflet, as samples of a 
score of such relating to the men and events in Massachusetts in the decade before 1775, 
which may be found in vol. x of his collected works. An interesting letter on Hutchinson , 
the royal governor, is that to William Tudor, Nov. 16, 1816. Many letters relate to Otis 
and his speech against the writs of assistance, one of the most impressive being that to Dr. 
J. Morse, Nov. 29, 1815. "A history of military operations from 1775 to 1783," he says 
here, "is not a history of the American Revolution. The revolution was in the minds and 
hearts of the people, and in the union of the colonies, both of which were substantially effected 
before hostilities commenced." Under date of June i, 1818, he begins a series of letters to 
WiUiam Tudor, giving an analysis of Otis's argument in his famous speech. 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE DIRECTORS OF THE OLD SOUTH WORK, 

Old South Meeting-house, Boston, Mass. 

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